Please read the guides for more information on installing and using Chromixium.

It’s been a long wait, but finally, the respective teams at the Chromium project and Ubuntu have updated the Chromium browser package. I can now (thankfully) report that Chromium no longer crashes when accessing the Chrome Web Store. As such I feel that now is the time to push the project forwards with this new release.

I have been able to make a couple of additional enhancements and smooth out some other bugs from Alpha 7a. The Lock Screen no longer flickers off immediately, gnome-screenshot is added and bound to the print-screen key and a number of minor inconsistencies have been ironed out. The installer remains unchanged in this release.

Please note: there is not a direct upgrade path from earlier releases – it does require a fresh install so if you want to sit this one out and wait for the stable release, you can just update Chromium (if it hasn’t auto-updated already) using Synaptic Package Manager or typing this command into a terminal:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install chromium-browser

There are two new features in Beta 0.8 that Ubuntu users will be familiar with. The first is the “Install additional drivers” tool. In Chromixium, you will find this in the Control Panel listed as “Sources and Drivers”. This will give you the option to enable the “Proprietary Drivers” repository and scan your system to see whether alternative hardware drivers can be installed. The second feature is the “Ubuntu Apps Directory“. This is an online version of the Ubuntu Software Center and you will be able to install software directly from this site by clicking on the orange “Available from the Software Center” icon on any application details page. You will find this new app in the Control Panel and also listed under Internet in the applications menu.

This release should give you all a very good idea of what Chromixium 1.0 will be like. If all goes well, I hope that we will still reach that first stable milestone by the end of March 2015.

As usual, help and support will be provided at the Chromixium Forum where I can usually respond within 24 hours. Questions, problems, bugs and feedback are all welcome. I am also looking for tips, tricks and guides that can be added to the Wiki. If you have got some time to spare and would like to help fellow Chromix-ers, then please get in touch.

6 comments

beta is working great so far. the combination of chrome store and Ubuntu online store has been great. Having a hard time locking regular chrome to dock. Besides that things have been good so far, and that isnt even a real issue for me.

It is larger than I would have liked but the Ubuntu base is rather bulky. As we’ve gone through the testing stages, various users have suggested or requested certain packages and functionality be added. Each time you do this, you increase the number of dependencies that get pulled in. On the face of it, this build should be tiny, but the truth is, to get a desktop that works on a wide range of hardware and provides the sort of experience that users want, the ISO unfortunately grew to 1GB.
I have no intention of adding office though. The idea would be to use web apps, but the ability exists to install libre office if you want. Hope this answers your question 🙂